Hi, I'm Byron, and I believe there’s magic in the details...

Surprise and delight make a stronger impact than pure functionality. I believe that useful and beautiful things make lasting impressions. Design is emotional, and that’s ok. That’s where I come in.

I’m focused on building and leading teams to tackle huge design and experience challenges. I lead concept development and creative direction that creates emotional connections with real people. I’m at my best in front of whiteboards and sketchpads, getting people excited about big ideas and helping solve design problems for globally cherished brands.

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Hi, I'm Byron, and I believe there’s magic in the details...

Surprise and delight make a stronger impact than pure functionality. I believe that useful and beautiful things make lasting impressions. Design is emotional, and that’s ok. That’s where I come in.

I’m focused on building and leading teams to tackle huge design and experience challenges. I lead concept development and creative direction that creates emotional connections with real people. I’m at my best in front of whiteboards and sketchpads, getting people excited about big ideas and helping solve design problems for globally cherished brands.

Let's roll up the sleeves and get to work.

Let's roll up the sleeves and get to work.

Design Leader + Strategic Creative Partner

I'm coming up on 15 years working in digital agencies, startups, corporate and government organizations, so I'm used to the tightest constraints, wrangling the biggest egos and quelling the toughest clients. My background is heavy on the visuals—old school graphic design, amateur photography and craft, so I will always lean towards visual communication and designing for emotion. But over the years I've found my sweet spot in all things digital, visual, motion, interaction and experience design. I love research, discovery, and the meticulous craft of bringing a concept to execution. I don't get too deep into code, but I tinker with prototyping and new tools out in the wild. Once I invest myself within an organization, I naturally forge deep partnerships with engineers of all platforms, product and business analysts, managers, senior executives and stakeholders.

Experience Design & creative direction

It starts with a passion and curiosity for discovery & research, relentless whiteboard work, a bottomless well of imagination and perspective, and resilience to ambiguity. When I roll up the sleeves, I fuss over the details in a loop of iterative design rigor. I'm used to estimating, workshopping problems and negotiating for resources to get the work done. My teams are champions of design process, while I clear the runway for their success and craft meaningful stories to bundle it all up.

Professional Focus

areas of expertise

Travel / Hospitality / Food & Beverage / Lodging / eCommerce

I’m at my best when I’m standing in front of a whiteboard, tracing out ideas and pushing on concepts with designers and cross-discipline partners. I build things, I break things, I tinker and experiment. I fail, then try again. More than anything, I love to get people excited about ideas and help solve design problems for globally cherished brands.

— Work Statement

Pick up a marker, solve for X.

Pick up a marker, solve for X.

Design Thinking

Whether it's art directing commercial photo shoots or launching mobile apps for millions of users, I start with almost exactly the same approach. Questions. Hundreds of them. Immersion into the subject matter, research and data. More questions. Get in front of the user. See through their eyes, live in their struggle as much as possible. Let the emotional experience of empathy unravel all the different angles of each problem, one by one. Take copious notes. Sleep on it. Reflect on it all and then figure out exactly what problems we are trying to solve. Then I pick up a marker and head to the whiteboard with my team...

My approach to problem solving:

Form a perspective.

Form a perspective.

My voice carries. Annoyingly so at times. I talk with my hands and I’m a little bit of a klutz. This winning combination garners more than it’s fair share of broken wine glasses, glares at restaurants, and shushes at most movie theaters.

— Opening lines, Stake in the Ground

Featured Essays

I've begun jotting down all my quirks and random stories into essays and sharing them to the public. I grew up reading fairy tales and scribbling in notebooks my entire life. As an adult, I'm attempting to get a little more serious. I humbly invite you to follow along as I stumble through personal failure and self-doubt to come out the other side with a fresh perspective and unique narrative voice. I love a good story.

Follow along, I promise I'll keep writing:

sorry, not sorry

I begged forgiveness for other people’s mistakes and for things out of my control. I said I’m sorry for not doing things that I didn’t know I needed to do or wasn’t supposed to. When it was time to call out peers, juniors or team members for unacceptable work or terrible fuck-ups, even in private, 1:1 or with a manager, I found a way to blame myself as well, just to even the score a little. As if I had to break off a little blame for myself to make sure it was still flavorful.

Year of the champion

When I told my parents I wanted to play hockey, my dad taught me how to take a punch before I learned to shoot a puck. He was preparing me for a long road ahead, the value of a good team member over just good players.

Put a Stake in the Ground

I've spent many years giving speeches, presentations and hosting events of all kinds, but only one in particular was a miserable failure. Follow along as I learn about the power of perspective as I crash and burn at my first real design talk.

Steal with Both Hands

The best career advice I ever got was from an interview gone horribly wrong. Watch and learn from my mistakes as my terrible portfolio as a junior designer gets torn apart by a seasoned Creative Director in San Antonio, Texas.

Stay hungry (for inspiration, or just actual food).

Stay hungry (for inspiration, or just actual food).

Gleaning Inspiration

I travel to satiate the never-ending hunger for inspiration and perspective. Wherever I go, I eat everything in sight, and I always order the special. Destiny, take the wheel. To see the unseen and experience the new and unusual is my bread & butter.